


Love, Jemma

by captainpuertoricoh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine, Love Letters, lil bit of angst, lil bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainpuertoricoh/pseuds/captainpuertoricoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now I know that not everything can be attributed to science--a chemical or engineering reaction--sometimes it's got to do with their soul, the very essence of who they are. I used to think differently. I used to think that if you tried hard enough, you could find a scientific explanation for everything. But then you came along, and you made me realize that the Big Bang was too spectacular to just be a coincidence. </p><p>(Or the one where Jemma writes a series of letters to Fitz but never sends them)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Jemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilesdeglace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilesdeglace/gifts).



> Hi, everybody! So this is a part of the FitzSimmons Secret Valentine exchange, and my prompt was: 
> 
> Not everything can be attributed to science--a chemical or engineering reaction--sometimes it's... (finish the sentence)
> 
> This was super fun to work on! I hope you enjoy, and please leave some feedback!

            At the age of ten, Jemma Simmons decides that she is content with loneliness. It is, after all, the price of intelligence, and she would rather be an isolated genius than somebody with a good social life and an IQ in the double digits.

            She realizes this one day on the playground. There’s a group of her classmates playing on the swings to her right, and to her left some other kids have started up a game of football, but she doesn’t feel comfortable with either activity, nor with the people involved. She wants to examine flora and fauna and record her findings in the cute little journal that her dad got her for Christmas the year previous. So she does just that, and when a girl named Johanna Abrams asks her what she’s doing and Jemma babbles excitedly about her discovery of _five_ different types of butterflies, she sneers the word that will be her label for the next several years.

            _Freak._

            And little ten-year-old Jemma, bright-eyed and full of hopes and dreams and ideas that most children would find incomprehensible, realizes that _yes,_ by definition, she _is_ a freak, and she’s completely okay with that. The rest of the world is on a different wavelength than her.

            She only becomes more isolated. Just a few weeks after the playground incident, she’s moved up a grade due to her advanced knowledge of science and incredible writing ability, and a year after that her family moves to Washington, D.C. because her mother got a promotion at work. Now she’s the little girl with the funny accent in a giant school located in a foreign country, where nobody understands her and nobody wants to. And she’s okay with that—she concluded a long time ago that friendship was unattainable.

            But she was wrong. Oh, man, was she wrong.

            She’s thirteen years old, a should-be-eighth-grader in an Advanced Chemistry class filled with sophomores and juniors who always stare at her, whispering when they think she can’t hear. They’re scared of her and intrigued by her and irritated with her all at the same time, so none of them bother to talk to her except for when partnered with her in projects; a phenomenon she’s long since been used to.

            Then the door opens, and Principal Coulson is asking if he can have a word with Jemma. She trembles as she stands, not knowing what she could have possibly done wrong. Her only interactions with fellow students are academic related. She’s never missed class or an assignment, and her grades are far above average. As she walks down the hallway, her mind races with opening arguments on how this _must_ be a mistake, that she would _never_ do anything to jeopardize her reputation as a good student, and the only logical explanation is that it’s a prank pulled on her by a classmate. But as she sits down in Coulson’s office and opens her mouth to speak, he silences her with a raised and a warm smile spreads on his face.

            “You’re not in trouble, Ms. Simmons,” he says, and she lets out a sigh of relief. He laughs. “I probably should have told you that right after I pulled you out of class. I hope I didn’t scare you.”

            “Would it be too dramatic to say that you gave me a heart attack, sir?” Coulson laughs, and she allows herself to smile in return.

            “Well, I’d like to ask you something, Jemma.” She nods her head once, silently telling him to go ahead. “What was it like for you when you first came here?”

            “Strange,” she says matter-of-factly, “but I adapted quickly.”

            “ _Uh-huh,_ ” he drawls out each syllable. It’s silent for what seems like ages as he just stares at her, and she examines the rather atrocious patterns on his rug. “We have a new transfer student, somebody who I imagine is going through something very similar.”

            “Really?”

            Coulson nods. “His name is Leo Fitz and he’s just moved here from Glasgow. I want you to make him feel welcome.”

            Jemma nods slowly, though she’s not sure she can pull through. She’s not the welcoming committee type. She’s about to tell her principal that maybe she’s not the best person for this job, in fact he probably should have asked anybody _but_ her, but he’s already asking her to go meet him in the front office and give him the grand tour and that’s it, her life is about to change forever and she doesn’t even know it, in fact she’s dreading the social interaction that she’s being forced into.

            She walks into the office and sees a boy sitting in one of the old, tacky velvet chairs. “Leo Fitz?” she asks and he whips his head around to face her, azure eyes going wide. Jemma laughs. “Sorry to startle you.”

            “No problem,” he responds. “It’s Fitz, by the way. Just Fitz.”

            “Well, Just Fitz,” Jemma begins, and internally kicks herself. _Really?_ “Principal Coulson wants me to show you around campus. Shall we?” He nods and stands, crossing the room to join her.

            “I didn’t catch your name.”

            “Jemma,” she says, extending her hand towards him. “Jemma Simmons.”

            He smiles widely, one of those smiles that you know is genuine because it reaches their eyes and lightens up their whole face, and Jemma has the urge to run far, far away because right now, he thinks she’s normal, and once he finds out that she’s too obsessed with science for her own good, once he learns that she’s a _freak,_ he’ll treat her just like the rest.

            “So,” she says as they walk down the hallway and she points out classrooms and warns him about the horribly boring lessons that take place within them. “What brought you here?”

            “Same thing as you, I imagine,” he responds. “Mum got a new job.” Jemma smiles because yes, that’s _exactly_ what happened to her.

            “And are you settling in well?”

            “It’s hard to say. I just got here, after all.” Jemma’s about to ask him how long he’s been in town, but he beats her to it. “No, really. Mum dropped me off here and then went straight to the new house to meet the movers.”

            “Wow. You must be so—”

            “Jet-lagged, yes.”

            Jemma nearly stops in her tracks. Who is this boy, this Leopold Fitz? How is it that in all of two seconds he’s managed to connect with her in a way that she’s never experienced before? How is it that he’s managed to finish her thoughts and sentences as if they were his own?

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

She finds herself writing that night, though she has no idea what moved her to do so—she’s never been one to record her emotions.

 

            _It looks like we’ll be sticking together from now on, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. It’s always been just me. I was content, exultant even, with my life of solitude. Then today I met you, and suddenly I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be a part of something, I wanted a friend, and if anybody meets the criteria for that, it’s you, Leopold Fitz._

 _I’m terrified. I’m terrified and ecstatic and enraged that I had to wait so long to find you all at the same time, and this whirlwind of emotion is making me realize that perhaps for these last thirteen years, I haven’t been truly living. I’ve always told myself otherwise, but maybe friendship_ is _the key to happiness, after all._

_I’m eager to see how you impact my life further,_

_-Jemma_

People still look at her, as though she’s even stranger than she was before. It’s as if she’s the pint-sized genius freak that everybody knows—except now with two heads. She has to admit, she thought this would stop, but she can’t bring herself to care. She knows why they’re staring, their gazes more blatant now than ever before. It’s because of him. Because there used to be one British science enthusiast who should be too young to be considered a high school student, but now there’s two and it’s _not fair_ that these prepubescent weirdos are smarter than most of the oldest students in the school.

            “Do they always stare like that?” Fitz questions one day as they sit down for lunch at a table that used to only be occupied by Jemma.

            “Yeah,” she responds, following his eyes to a group of girls across the cafeteria who are whispering loudly and cackling as they openly ogle the pair of them, no doubt mocking Jemma’s fashion sense or Fitz’s desperate need for a haircut. “But you get used to it. After all, loneliness is—”

            “—the price of intelligence,” he finishes for her, and they both smile.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_It’s weird. We’ve known each other for two weeks, but it feels like two years. Sometimes I wonder if you’re a mind reader, and other times I think that maybe this is just the way friends work—after all, I’ve never had one before, so I have no idea how it goes for normal people. Maybe everybody has that one friend that knows them inside and out, that can finish their sentences as if it’s scripted and know their emotions even though their face is blank. That’s what you are to me, and I hope that’s what I am to you._

_-Jemma_

            The rest of the year goes by quickly, and before they know it, it’s summer. Fitz is going back to Scotland to see family and finish the sale on his old house and Jemma is going to MIT for an intense Chemistry program. They don’t see or hear from each other for three months and when the new school year starts and she sees him in the hall, no doubt searching for her as well, she drops her bag and runs towards him, pushing people out of her way and yelling his name over and over until finally he sees her and his smile, _God_ she missed his smile, it’s earth-shattering and warm and _home._

            She tackles him in a hug and it takes all of his strength not to fall backwards. There’s laughter and (though neither of them will admit to it) tears and _‘God, I missed you’_ s. They pull apart and look at each other for the first time in months.

            “You’re taller,” she observes and laughs because it looks like he’s finally caught up to her.

            “You cut your hair.”

            “Your voice is deeper.”

            “Yours is more annoying.”

            “Hey!” She laughs, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. There’s a pause, and then, “It’s good to see you, Fitz.”

            “Yeah. You, too.” 

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_Summer was hell. It was the longest three months of my life, having to go back to the way things were before I met you. Completely alone, being the object of everybody’s staring and gossip, except you weren’t there to distract me anymore._

_You have ruined me, Leopold Fitz. The whole “me, myself, and I” thing used to work just fine for me, but then I met you and now I can never go back. I need friendship. I need somebody to share my life with. And it’s all thanks to you._

_-Jemma_

Jemma sighs as she takes her seat in History class. This is by far her least favorite subject, and they’re learning about a particularly boring time period. Honestly, the only that gets her through the hour is Fitz.

            She smiles as he takes his seat next to her and is already passing her a note that reads “ _Please kill me NOW”._

            She shakes her head as she writes her response. _“Class hasn’t even started yet. Calm yourself.”_

            Fitz’s jaw drops and when he turns to her and mouths “ _Calm yourself?”_ with a rather offended look on his face, she can’t help the giggle that escapes her lips. He starts writing furiously and she turns around, trying in vain to pay attention to Mr. Koenig’s lecture about farmers during the late 1800’s.

            _“Why the hell do we even have to learn about AMERICAN_ _History? We’re British, for Christ’s sake!”_

_“Great deduction, Watson,” she writes back quickly, and hands the paper to him when Koenig’s back is turned._

“You did _not_ just ‘Watson’ me,” Fitz whispers loudly, and the two of them flinch as Mr. Koenig turns around and stares at them.

            “Something to share with the class, FitzSimmons?”

            “Nope,” they say simultaneously.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

 _Mr. Koenig combined our names today, and he said it so casually and it sounded so natural that it genuinely_ scared _me. It made me realize just how attached I am to you._

 _Last year I wrote to you wondering if our friendship was just like every other. You never responded—of course you didn’t, you’re never going to read these letters, after all—but you_ did _help me realize the answer._

_This thing that we’ve got, it’s not normal. It’s strange and beautiful and dangerous. We’ve become so codependent that we’re not even acknowledged as two separate people anymore. We are a single unit, making each other stronger but at the same time being each other’s greatest weaknesses, because I’ve no doubt that if we lose each other, we will cease to function properly._

_-Jemma_

            It’s not until about a year later when everything changes for her. Some of her relatives come into town for Christmas and her parents are throwing their annual ugly jumper party. They’re setting up, and Fitz is helping Mr. Simmons hang some lights around the railings.

            “Hey,” somebody says from behind her and Jemma nearly jumps out of her skin, spilling her drink all over herself. “Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Jemma turns around to see Bobbi, her cousin Lance’s fiancée.

            “Oh, it’s alright.” She smiles as she takes off her soiled jumper. She’s always considered Bobbie as part of the family. Jemma only has two female cousins—one of them is thirty years old and one is three. So when Lance introduced Bobbi to the family, and Jemma saw that their age gap was rather small, she clung to her instantly.

            “Is it just me or do your parents get more into this party every year?” It’s true. What used to be a simple family dinner with hideous, uncomfortable jumpers has now become a neighborhood gathering with catering, a bar service, fancy decorations, and hideous, uncomfortable jumpers.

            “Yeah. It’s bigger than us now, I guess.” She looks over to Fitz, who is currently climbing a ladder to hang some popcorn garlands. He turns his head and catches her eyes, and he smiles and nods in her direction. She feels a grin spreading on her own face and she nods back.

            “Is that Fitz?” Bobbi asks. Of course she knows who he is. All of Jemma’s relatives do—he became a sort of celebrity to Mr. and Mrs. Simmons ever since he came home one day with Jemma, being introduced as her friend.

            “Yeah,” Jemma responds.

            “He’s cute,” Bobbie observes.

            _His face is rather symmetrical,_ Jemma thinks briefly, but she doesn’t have much time to dwell on the thought because Fitz has just fallen off the ladder and she’s rushing to his side, making sure everything is okay.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_First of all, you scared the hell out of me today! I would have slapped you upside the head if you weren’t already mildly concussed, and thank God that’s all that happened to you. I would have been devastated if you were badly injured, or worse. That’s the last time I’m letting you anywhere near a ladder. Honestly, I’ve no idea what Dad was thinking—we all know you’re too clumsy for your own good._

_Now that we’ve established that you’re an idiot, I’m going to move on to a more serious topic. It has recently been brought to my attention that you are physically attractive. I don’t want this to change anything between us. Despite these weird, warm feelings that I get now whenever I think about it, you are still by best friend, and I don’t want that to be mucked up because of a chemical reaction due to your undoubtedly good genetics._

_I know it’s stupid to worry. I know we’re inseparable and nothing in the world could change that. But I’ve seen the movies and read the books, and I know these situations end in one of two ways. Either a) the best friends become partners, and they spend the rest of their happy lives together, or b) the friendship is ruined. The feeling is not mutual, and the person who has just confessed their undying love gets rejected delicately with the promise of remaining “just friends”. But that never happens. Things become too awkward, and the once beautiful friendship dies a slow, painful death._

_I don’t want either of those scenarios. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you’d make a great boyfriend, but I don’t think these feelings are romantic at all. They’re just my hormones telling me that you’re good looking, and that I should, in the words of Jenna from History class, “totally get on that”._

_And who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I do have a bit of a crush on you. But even so, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re only fifteen, and way too young to be in committed relationships._

_Could there be more between us in the future? It’s hard to tell, but for now, let’s just leave it at the fact that I’m not completely opposed to the idea. Until then, all I want to be is your best friend._

_-Jemma_

            She’d hoped that admitting her feelings in a letter that would never be sent would help get rid of them, but as time went on they only seemed to grow stronger. She starts to realize everything about him that makes her tick. His amazingly blue eyes, his wildly curly hair that, yes, could use a nice cut, but only adds to his boyish charm, the way he lights up like a match being thrown onto a puddle of gasoline whenever he talks about mechanics—even the way he overreacts sometimes, when Jemma is relentlessly teasing him and he crosses his arms and pouts and grumbles to himself about how he has the worst best friend in the world is completely adorable. 

            She knows if she doesn’t do something fast, her hormones will get the better of her and everything will go to hell. So she does something drastic.

            There’s a new guy at school. Decently attractive, somewhat intelligent, and relatively nice. He goes out of his way to make conversation with her, something that has _never_ happened before with anybody except Fitz, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered. He likes her, she can tell. She can tell by the way he gets slightly nervous around her, and how other girls start giving her death-glares in class whenever he talks to her. And when he asks her out, she graciously accepts. It doesn’t feel right at all, but she’ll do anything to get her mind off of Fitz. He does nothing for her, however, and their relationship (if you could even call it that) fizzles out before the month is over.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_I wish I could say he broke my heart. I wish I could say I never saw it coming, that I thought we would be together for a long time and I cried about it for hours. I wish I could say that I loved him with all of my soul, and that I’d never be able to love anybody the way I loved him._

_But I can’t._

_You know I can’t, he knows I can’t…I think everybody knows I can’t._

_And I wish I could say this had nothing to do with you, Fitz, but I can’t do that, either. Because truth be told, it has_ everything _to do with you. He was jealous of you,_ so _jealous of you, and he had every reason to be because one of the many reasons things didn’t work out between us is that he’s not_ _you. He doesn’t get me the way you do—nobody does, and nobody ever will._

 _In one of my first letters, I say that I can’t go back to my life without having a friend. I’ve come to realize that that’s not entirely true. It’s not just_ a friend _that I need, Fitz, it’s you. I need you more than you could ever imagine, and I hate the fact that you have so much power over me. I hate that if you ever decided to leave me, for whatever reason, that would be it. My life would be over, then and there. I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s true. I need you like I need air. So let’s just say that I plan on keeping you in my life for a very long time, whatever that may mean._

_-Jemma_

            She debates telling him several times. He might understand, she reasons with herself, and who knows, maybe he’ll even feel the same way. Maybe they can figure this out together. But she doesn’t want to risk it. She can’t lose him. That’s what always stops her from saying it, even when she’s just a breath away from telling him. So she settles for just trying to figure out how he feels about her.

            “Hey, Fitz?” she asks one night at his house. They sleep at each other’s places often, ever since they were fourteen and Mrs. Simmons found them passed out on the couch and she just smiled to herself, not daring to disturb the peace.

            “Yeah?” he responds, voice heavy with sleep.

            “What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and I was gone?”

            Fitz sits up in his nest of blankets on the floor, trying to make out her silhouette in the dark room. “Jemma, you’re not moving, are you?”

            “No, of course not,” she laughs briefly, but then her voice becomes serious again. “But what if I was? What if you never saw me again? Would you be okay?”

            He’s silent for a long moment, and Jemma thinks that he’s fallen asleep and is about to call out to him when he says, “Honestly? No. Not for a very long time, at least. And even then…I’d never be the same.”

            “Really?”

            “No,” he says, annoyance clear in his voice. “I’m just telling you what you want to hear so you’ll let me go the hell to sleep.” Jemma lets out an offended gasp and throws a pillow across the room. It lands nowhere near him. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” he says, laughing. “You know I love you.”

            Jemma doesn’t respond. She falls asleep thinking about that, and whether he actually meant it or if it just fit the banter. But she knows him, and she knows he wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_You told me you love me. I love you, too._

_Love,_

_Jemma._

            Before they know it, it’s time to start applying to colleges, and they start planning out their lives together without even realizing what they’re doing. They apply to the all same universities, plan on taking most of the same courses, and research job possibilities where they would work in the same place. They even talk about getting an apartment and adopting a dog when they’re done with undergrad.

            “Don’t be ridiculous, Fitz. We’re not naming our dog _Monkey._ ”

            “Why not?” he exclaims. “It’s cute!”

            “Why on Earth would you name an animal after _another_ animal? That’s…that’s _lazy_ , is what it is!”

            “You’re just mad I won’t let you name it after Peggy Carter.” Jemma rolls her eyes but says nothing, and he smirks. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

 _God, I wish you were reading these. I wish you knew how absolutely mad you’re driving me. You’ve taken over my life, Leopold Fitz, and I hate you for that. I hate you and I love you and I hate loving you because life would be so damn_ easy _without you._

 _But I don’t want easy, I want happiness, and honestly? I won’t be able to achieve that without you. Sure, science will keep me occupied, and it will make me briefly content, but it won’t make me_ happy.

 _Do you want to know what_ will _make me happy? Seeing you everyday. Hearing your laugh, seeing your smile, talking about everything and nothing all at the same time and just_ being _with you._

_You’re the light of my life, as corny as that sounds, and I can only hope that you feel the same about me._

_Love,_

_Jemma_

            Graduation rolls around. They’ll be attending MIT together in the fall, and they’re already planning their schedules to correspond with each other. She walks into his room the day of and smiles as she sees him cursing loudly because he can’t get his tie right.

            “Here,” she says, causing him to jump about three feet, and they both laugh. “Allow me.” She steps closer to him and ties it for him in one try and smiles smugly because she _knows_ he’s mad, mad that she, who has never worn a tie in her life, can tie one better than him, who has worn them on several occasions. And she can practically hear him screaming at her, _Dammit, woman, do you have to beat me at everything?_ “There,” she says, tightening the knot. She can’t bring herself to let go, however, and instead steps closer to him.

            He drops his head down to look at her and touches his fingers to her cheek, and she burns like the sun. “Are you ready?” he asks.

            “I’m scared,” she admits softly, staring at him through wide, terrified eyes.

            “Me too,” he says, and they smile at each other because they both already feel so much better, They’re still scared, scared beyond belief, but they’re scared together so they know they can figure it out.

            Jemma is the valedictorian of her class, which is surprising to absolutely no one. And in her speech she talks of the future, and how the sky is the limit and that they hold the fate of tomorrow in their hands, and she’s looking at him the whole time and he’s just trying not to laugh because he _dared_ her to do this. He dared her to make the cheesiest speech _ever,_ and he thought she wouldn’t do it because this would be one of her greatest milestones but here she is, reading a speech she found on a website and not giving a damn because after this whole thing is over, her life at this place ends. Nobody will remember her, or her name, or her shitty valedictorian speech. They’ll see her name on trophies for academic achievement, but they won’t think it special, and they won’t know her face. They won’t care about her, and quite frankly, she won’t care about them. All she cares about is Fitz, and her new life that she’s starting with him.

            As soon as the ceremony is over, she runs to him and nearly tackles him to the ground with a hug, and for a brief moment she’s reminded of a very similar situation years ago, a result of not having seen him in months, and that’s _never_ going to happen again. “That was a nice speech,” he says as they pull apart and their parents pose them for pictures.

            “Didn’t think I’d go through with it, did you?” she asks through her smile.

            “Honestly, I thought you forgot.”

             And then the pictures are over, and they’re walking out of the auditorium doors for the last time, and she’s not feeling nostalgic, not in the least bit, because the wonderful memories from the last few years? They don’t belong to the school. They belong to Fitz.

             “Do you think MIT will be this terrible?” he wonders as they make their way to the parking lot.

             “God, I hope not,” she says, and they both laugh. They lean silently against his car, staring at the building that had been their home for the past four years, and Fitz says,

             “High school wasn’t so terrible, if you think about it.”

             “Leopold Fitz, don’t you dare go sentimental on me, now.”

             “Too late,” he says, and he’s got that wide grin on his face that Jemma knows means trouble, and before she can do anything, he’s grabbing her hand and running towards the school building, bursting through the front doors and pulling her into the empty front office.

              They just stand there for a second, catching their breaths, and then he turns to her and says, “This is where it all began,” and she knows exactly what he means. She stares directly at the ugly blue chair, the one he was sitting in when she first met him. “The only good thing that came out of this hellhole,” he walks closer to her and her heart begins to race, and it has nothing to do with the fact that just a couple of minutes before, she was running as if her life depended on it, “was meeting you.”

               And then he’s kissing her, and for the first time in her life, her mind goes completely blank. She doesn’t know what to think, or _how_ to think, she just knows that her best friend’s lips are on hers and she’s wanted this for such a long time but now she has absolutely no idea what to do. What should she say?

 _No, don’t be stupid, Jemma, don’t_ say _anything, just kiss him back._

               And she does. She kisses him with as much love as she can muster, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer and _God,_ where did he learn to kiss like that? She’s fairly sure he’s never had a girlfriend, unless he hid it from her, that _bastard!_

               Or maybe he just knows the steps, and he’s applying them as if it’s a scientific experiment. After all, that’s what she did when she had her first kiss, and now that she thinks about it, that’s when everything started to go downhill in her “relationship” because she had done so well that he asked if she’d done it before, and without her even answering the question, he was making all kinds of accusations. _Is it Fitz? Were you two dating? Do you still have feelings for him?_

 _Well, do you?_ she asks herself as the finally pull apart, gasping for air. What a ridiculous question, of course she does. She’s so sure of it now. But as she looks at him, lips red and parted and cheeks tinged and hair mussed, eyes boring into hers, she can’t bring herself to say it. Because what if this was just a mistake? What if he got caught up in the moment and just kissed her on a whim, and he didn’t _really_ mean it, he just wanted to see what it felt like?

              _No._ She can’t hear him say that. It’ll ruin her.

               So she bolts. She sprints to her car, nearly tripping on her gown on the way out and not even caring that her cap falls off her head. She just needs to get away from him before he says something that will destroy their entire friendship.

               And once she’s in her car and driving away at an unnecessary speed, she realizes what she’s done and she pulls over to the side of the road and bawls her eyes out because how _stupid_ is she? This is _Fitz,_ after all! He wouldn’t just do something so drastic with no reason! He probably spent weeks, if not months, contemplating the pros and cons and he finally got the courage to do it and oh, _God,_ she ran. She ran and he’ll never want to see her again.  

 

_Dear Fitz,_

_I made the biggest mistake of my life today. You kissed me. You kissed me and I ran and I am such a god damn idiot, how the_ hell _did I think that was a good idea?_

_You probably think I rejected you. You probably think that I hated the kiss, and that I’ll never think of you that way and our friendship is over but God, Fitz, you have no idea how wrong you are._

_I think about it. I’ve thought about it ever since the Christmas party a few years back when you fell off a ladder and I thought you were going to die. And I spent so long wondering if anything was real, but now I know it’s as true as every other simple fact in life. The Earth rotates on its axis, energy cannot be created or destroyed, and I am in love with you._

_And I used to spend_ so long _trying to con_ vince _myself that it was nothing but cells being targeted by hormones, but now I know how foolish I was. Now I know that not everything a person feels can be attributed to science—a chemical or engineering reaction—sometimes it’s got to do with their soul, the very essence of who they are. I used to think differently. I used to think that if you tried hard enough, you could find a scientific explanation for everything. But then you came along, and you made me realize that the Big Bang was too spectacular to just be a coincidence._

_I’m sorry I ran today, Fitz. I’m sorry I potentially ruined our entire relationship. But you terrify me. You terrify me because I love you too much, and it’s probably extremely unhealthy. Please don’t leave me. I need you._

_Love,_

_Jemma_

And she does something she promised herself she’d never do.

            She sends all of them.

 

            He shows up at her door the next day, holding her graduation cap. “You dropped this,” he says quietly, not being able to meet her gaze, and he read the letters, she _knows_ he did.

            “Thank you,” she says, taking the cap from him and placing it on a nearby coffee table. “Would you like to come in?” He nods and she swallows a lump in her throat as she shuts the door behind him. He has to forgive her. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he doesn’t.

            “Fitz, I—”

            “Is it true?” he cuts her off with a sort of urgency in his tone. “What you said in those letters, is it true?”

            “Every word.”

            He steps closer to her, and a flood of relief washes over her as she can see the tiniest hint of a smile creeping up on his lips. “Well, in that case,” he starts, and she knows what’s coming, and she’s trying desperately not to tear up. “Jemma Simmons, I’m in l—”

            She doesn’t let him finish. She grabs him by his shirt collar and all but crashes into him, kissing him like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. He laughs and puts his hands on either side of her face, kissing her back. And she knows it’s dangerous, because they’re right in the middle of the living room and her parents are home and they could walk in on them at any moment, but she honestly couldn’t care less. The world could be ending and all she’d care about was the beautiful, monkey-obsessed idiot right in front of her.

            “Oh, come on,” he says between kisses, “I had a speech planned out and everything!”

            “Shut the hell up, Fitz,” Jemma says, rolling her eyes but smiling nonetheless. And he does.

 

            _Dear Fitz,_

_It took us long enough, but we’re finally together. I’m terrified, and I’m willing to bet everything I’ve got that you are, too. But I think we’ll be okay._

_Love,_

_Jemma_

           

**Author's Note:**

> My Blog: captainpuertoricoh.tumblr.com
> 
> My Valentine's Blog: etoilesdeglace.tumblr.com


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